Fourteen Aphorisms

Health is not a commodity.
Risk factors are not disease.
Aging is not an illness.
Quality is more than metrics.

Doing all we can is not the same as doing what we should.
Time is precious. We spend it on what we value.
Doctors expect too much from data and not enough from conversation.
To fix a problem is easy; to share another's suffering is hard.
The most common condition we treat is unhappiness.
The greatest obstacle to treating patients' unhappiness is our own.
Patients cannot see outside their pain; we cannot see in. Relationship is the bridge between.

Nothing is more patient-centered than the process of change.
Community is the locus of healing, not the hospital or the clinic.
The foundation of medicine is conversation, friendship, and hope.

- from What Matters in Medicine, David Loxterkamp, MD